Starbucks Accused of Underpaying Its Supervisors

Allegedly Starbucks pays their supervisors a low wage and expects that they will make up for any pay difference by sharing in the tip money. How crazy is that?

This week a California judge has ruled, in a class action suit, that Starbucks owes its baristers, present and former, “the sum of $86.7 million, plus awards interest of 7%, for tip pool money that the coffee retailer used to compensate shift supervisors.”

A former barister went to court over the issue in October 2004 when he felt it was wrong that Starbucks’ supervision should be dipping into the tips.

California state labor laws were on his side as it is explicitly stated that owners, managers or supervisors may not share in tip pools.

David A. Lowe, lead trial attorney stated, “Starbucks was subsidizing labor costs for shift supervisors by diverting money from the tip pools to shift supervisors instead of paying more to them out of Starbucks’ pocket.”

Wow! Life at Starbucks isn’t as wonderful as it looks from the outside!

Hope this doesn’t mean a regular cup of coffee that is now $1.65 will have to go up in price exponentially to make up for the increase to supervisions’ pay and the multi-million dollar pay-out Starbucks will be making…